Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 27th Apr 2007 18:20 UTC, submitted by flanque
"It's amazing how many people who have Microsoft Windows everywhere look flummoxed when asked whether Windows is their "standard" for desktop computing. The reason they are thrown by this question is typically because they haven't thought about it that way before. In all likelihood, they never actually made a proactive decision to select Windows, in the sense of looking at alternatives and making a conscious objective choice. So how did they end up with it?"
Thread beginning with comment 234723
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
RE[5]: How did it happen?
by Dave_K on Sat 28th Apr 2007 02:23
in reply to "RE[4]: How did it happen?"
Member since:2005-11-16
You're not right about that one in its specifics. The CEO Digital specifically said that "No one would want to have a computer at home."
How is that error on his part relevant (I seem to remember hearing something similar from IBM as well)? Digital were certainly willing to provide their products for home computers. They offered CP/M, DR-DOS and GEM for the IBM PC, and supplied Atari with their OS/GUI. Clearly they would have offered their OS to clone makers if they'd been in Microsoft's position.
It was also Bill Gates and Microsoft that aggressively pushed for a cloning market.
I think you'll find that the companies who pushed most aggressively for cloning were the hardware companies who wanted to do the cloning. I believe it was Compaq who first went to the expense and effort of reverse engineering the IBM PC's BIOS. It was also Compaq who fought IBM in court when they tried to prevent cloning. Microsoft had little to do with it.
Of course Microsoft weren't against it, it didn't matter to them who made the hardware, the same would be true of any other company in their position.
Frankly, Microsoft and Gates definitely had a vision for computing.
What do you believe that vision to be?
Recent Original Stories
Recent Comments
Headlines
Random Comments
Random Stories
Random OS Link
Member since:
2006-01-02
You're not right about that one in its specifics. The CEO Digital specifically said that "No one would want to have a computer at home." It was also Bill Gates and Microsoft that aggressively pushed for a cloning market.
To be honest, the IBM PC division was a bunch of third-rate engineers (for instance, they were going to attach the keyboard controller to the NMI pin of the 80286 because "it's just another pin"). Frankly, Microsoft and Gates definitely had a vision for computing. They were also really aggressive as businessmen. Apple had a different attitude in that they expected people to pay for the "joy" of using a Macintosh. The Macintosh division went for a monopolistic profit-maximizing price, whereas Microsoft aimed at profitting by expanding the market.